'Boredom, hunger and rape': Elizabeth Smart describes her kidnapping hell as she returns to the woods where she was chained up for months and reveals she hadn't even hit puberty when nightmare began

  • Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped at the age of 14 in 2002, described multiple close calls where she was almost rescued
  • She lashes out at critics who question why she didn't cry out for help over the course of her nine months of captivity, saying he threatened her family
  • The devout Mormon admits she did 'things I never thought I would do'
  • Leaned on her faith and believes that God gave her a sign that she would be saved by placing a cup of cold water in her tent one evening
  • Learned how to manipulate her rapist in a bid to be recognized

By Meghan Keneally and Rachel Quigley

PUBLISHED: 12:27 EST, 4 October 2013 | UPDATED: 08:38 EST, 5 October 2013


Elizabeth Smart has revealed details about her harrowing kidnapping and nine-months of captivity, telling how she pleaded with her captor as he was about to rape her for the first time by telling him that she hadn't even hit puberty yet.

The now-25-year-old woman has spoken out about her infamous kidnapping in 2002 where she was taken from her bedroom and hidden in the woods outside of Salt Lake City for months.

During an hour-long interview with Meredith Vieira, Smart returned to the remote spot where she had been chained up between trees and raped every day as a teenager.

She told of how in spite of the fear and confusion she felt immediately after captor Brian David Mitchell took her from her home in the middle of the night, she used information she knew about other kidnappings in the vain hope of trying have her parents get closure.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO She recalled: 'I was begging and crying and just so scared. I remember thinking, I know what comes after a wedding. And that cannot happen to me. That cannot happen'

She recalled: 'I was begging and crying and just so scared. I remember thinking, I know what comes after a wedding. And that cannot happen to me. That cannot happen'

Awareness: Since her recovery and subsequent graduation from college, Smart has dedicated her time to speaking out for the rights of kidnapping victims

Awareness: Since her recovery and subsequent graduation from college, Smart has dedicated her time to speaking out for the rights of kidnapping victims

As they trekked up a remote path in the woods, she tried rationalizing with Mitchell: 'If you're going to rape and kill me, will you please just do it here so that my parents can find my body?'

'He just smiled at me and said "I'm not going to kill you yet,"' she told Vieira.

She tried another tact: 'Don't you know what you're doing- you're going to get caught and you're going to go to jail for the rest of your life!' Smart told Mitchell.

He responded: 'I know exactly what I'm doing. The only difference is I'm not going to get caught.'

When they stopped their trek, they arrived at a campsite where his accomplice- his wife, Wanda Barzee- was waiting. She began performing a makeshift wedding ceremony and Elizabeth said that she stopped crying and began to understand what was going on towards the end.

'I was begging and crying and just so scared,’ the petite blonde told Vieira.

'I knew what happened after a wedding.

Retrace: Elizabeth Smart walks Meredith Vieira the route to the camp Mitchell dragged her at knife point after he kidnapped her from her bedroom

Retrace: Elizabeth Smart walks Meredith Vieira the route to the camp Mitchell dragged her at knife point after he kidnapped her from her bedroom

Trauma: Smart, seen here with her dog Archie and Vieira, spent the majority of her nine-month kidnap ordeal in this wooded area where she was routinely beaten and raped by Mitchell and his wife

Trauma: Smart, seen here with her dog Archie and Vieira, spent the majority of her nine-month kidnap ordeal in this wooded area where she was routinely beaten and raped by Mitchell and his wife

Again, she tried to argue her way out of trouble: 'Wait I didn't say I do. I didn't say yes. I'm just a little girl, you know I'm so little I haven't even hit puberty yet,' Smart recalls saying at the time.

'He raped me right there on the floor of the tent and then when he was finished I was left alone feeling absolutely broken absolutely shattered. I was broken beyond repair,' she said.

'Everytime I thought "OK this cannot get worse," it always did.'

When asked how she would describe the months where she was chained to the tree, hidden just miles from her home but knowing that there was little chance that she would be found, Smart said that the three best words would be 'boredom, hunger and rape'.

During the NBC special, which aired Friday night, Vieira asked Smart if being back at the campsite gave her 'the creeps', she said: 'You know, it doesn't. I was totally comfortable here because this place didn't hurt me. Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, they're the ones who hurt me.'

Remote: Elizabeth, now 25, tells how there was one time where she heard her uncle calling out for her as part of a search party but she could not respond because Mitchell threatened to kill him

Remote: Elizabeth, now 25, tells how there was one time where she heard her uncle calling out for her as part of a search party but she could not respond because Mitchell threatened to kill him

Close calls: Smart said there was an instance during a visit to town where someone called police after thinking they spotted Smart but the officer was led off the scent by a convincing story from Mitchell

Close calls: Smart said there was an instance during a visit to town where someone called police after thinking they spotted Smart but the officer was led off the scent by a convincing story from Mitchell

Shelter: Mitchell and his wife had been living in the wooded area close to where Elizabeth and her family lived

Shelter: Mitchell and his wife had been living in the wooded area close to where Elizabeth and her family lived

Moving on: Smart's book comes nearly a decade after her kidnapping

Moving on: Smart's book comes nearly a decade after her kidnapping

'There was a point that I stopped crying,' she revealed. 'It’s not just because I didn’t feel pain any more, not because I didn’t feel sorrow. It was just to keep going. I mean, it just was to survive, to live.'

'Sleep was like my oasis- the place I could go to. If I could’ve slept for nine months, I would have.

She recalled one night where, after having run out of drinking water days earlier, she woke up in the middle of the night to find a cold glass of water right beside her bed inside the tent. To this day, Smart believes it was a sign from God telling her that she was not alone.

Her Mormon faith was something she held onto throughout the ordeal, even though her captors made her break many of the religion’s rules which included doing drugs with them and drinking alcohol.

'Oh he knew I was Mormon, he knew the doctrine, he knew what I believed in,' she said.

That was no matter to Mitchell, however, who viewed himself as a prophet who received direct orders from God.

She later used that belief against him.

Behind bars: Smart testified to the competency of her captor, Brian David Mitchell (left) and he was sentenced to life in prison while his wife Wanda Ileen Barzee (right) will spend 15 years behind bars
Behind bars: Smart testified to the competency of her captor, Brian David Mitchell (left) and he was sentenced to life in prison while his wife Wanda Ileen Barzee (right) will spend 15 years behind bars

Behind bars: Smart testified to the competency of her captor, Brian David Mitchell (left) and he was sentenced to life in prison while his wife Wanda Ileen Barzee (right) will spend 15 years behind bars

Smart, who is promoting the book that she wrote about her ordeal, told Vieira about the numerous close calls she had to being rescued over the course of her nine months of captivity.

One came when she heard her uncle's voice calling out her name as he participated in one of the many search parties who explored the woods looking for the kidnapped girl.

Like so many other instances, Smart wanted to scream out but faced a very real threat from Mitchell: 'If they ever get into this camp, I will kill them,' he said.

Another chance at his capture came through a fearful situation for Smart: after having offhandedly mentioned her cousin Olivia in a conversation, Mitchell got it in his head that she was going to be 'his next wife' and so he left the camp one night and went to her house to kidnap her.

'I felt like such a terrible person I had just betrayed one of my very best friends,' Smart said.

Mitchell was almost caught when he tried to break into Olivia's home to kidnap her, but he got away and police wrote the incident off as unrelated to Elizabeth's earlier kidnapping.

Unimaginable: Smart said how she was repeatedly raped and tied to a tree, being treated as less than human

Unimaginable: Smart said how she was repeatedly raped and tied to a tree, being treated as less than human

Perspective: Smart says that revisiting the site doesn't bother her because it wasn't the area that caused her harm, it was her captors who are now behind bars

Perspective: Smart says that revisiting the site doesn't bother her because it wasn't the area that caused her harm, it was her captors who are now behind bars

On the rare occasion that Mitchell, Barzee and Smart left the compound and went into Salt Lake city, they made her wear a headmask. During a trip to the city library- where they went to look at maps of California to see where they should move- one woman thought she recognized her and called police. An officer came to the library and spoke to Mitchell, but he was able to convince the officer that the girl was his daughter who wore the headscarf due to their religion.

'Her demeanor was not consistent with what I had expected, and this mans statements were cogent,' the officer said to NBC.

The reason Elizabeth didn't scream out was because Barzee had a 'vice-like' grip on her leg throughout the interaction, up to the minute that the officer left.

'That was almost just as bad as being kidnapped as being raped as being chained up,' Smart said of the moment when the officer went away.

After they moved to San Diego, California, there was talk that they should move to the East Coast but Elizabeth feared no one would know her story there and her chances of being found would decrease dramatically.

In order to avoid that fate, she began telling Mitchell that she had a feeling from God that they should go back to Utah, but she had to make it seem like it was his idea to do so.

She played on Mitchell's belief that he was a prophet of God: 'You are his servant, you are his prophet, you're practically his best friend- could you please just ask him?' she asked. 

'It was a means to an end. I felt that that was my greatest chance I had at getting home at being rescued,' she said.

New beginnings: Smart married fellow Mormon Matthew Gilmour and he had never heard of her case until she told him all of the details herself

New beginnings: Smart married fellow Mormon Matthew Gilmour and he had never heard of her case until she told him all of the details herself

Happy now: Smart had her husband Matthew Gilmour alongside her for portions of the interview with Vieira

Happy now: Smart had her husband Matthew Gilmour alongside her for portions of the interview with Vieira

He agreed, and the trio headed back to Utah where they stopped in a local Walmart. It was there that she saw a wall of missing persons posters but did not see her own, making her think 'did they forget me? Did they give up on me?'

They hadn't: someone in the store called police and said that she thought she saw the man whose picture she had seen on the news in connection to the Elizabeth Smart disappearance.

The officer asked Elizabeth who she was when he arrived at the store, but, like the time in the library, she was too afraid to answer.

'I was scared- what if the policeman didn't believe me? What if they released me back to Mitchell and Barzee?' she said.

Rather than leave, however, the officer took all three into the police station and it was only when Smart's father Ed came into the interrogation room with Elizabeth did she know that everything was going to be alright.

Waiting at home: Elizabeth's sister Mary Katherine (left) was the one who told their mother Lois (right) that Elizabeth had been taken since she was in the same room as Mitchell when he kidnapped her

Waiting at home: Elizabeth's sister Mary Katherine (left) was the one who told their mother Lois (right) that Elizabeth had been taken since she was in the same room as Mitchell when he kidnapped her

'I was so happy when I saw him and he came running over and grabbed me in his arms. I knew that nobody would be able to hurt me ever again,' she said.

Smart has spoken about her experiences a number of times, including at her captors' trials where she helped sentence Mitchell to life in prison and Barzee will be behind bars for 15 years. 

'I mean, here I was, a 14-year-old girl, ripped from my family, from the life I knew, from my friends, from the people I loved- being raped every day, not knowing when I'd be able to eat next, not knowing when I'd be able to drink next, and being chained to a tree,' Smart said in the interview with Vieira.

'I didn't feel human.'

'I don't think there's anything worse you can do to a child.'

Since her kidnapping, Smart has tried to keep herself focused on her future as opposed to the past, but her most vivid testimony came when she spoke at the hearing for her captor.

Mitchell, a religious fanatic, initially submitted an insanity defense and repeatedly sang to himself in the courtroom but Smart was poised and direct in her verbal confrontations with him.

'I know that you know what you did is wrong, she said in the 2011 court appearance. 'I also want you to know that I have a wonderful life now, that no matter what you do it will affect me again... but in this life or next you will have to be held responsible for those actions and I hope you are ready for when that time comes,' she said. 


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I remember vividly when this happened, how wonderful to see what a beautiful and strong young woman Elizabeth is. I wish her and her husband much happiness and joy throughout their lives together.

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She's living her life and if that includes writing a book to purge the filth, so be it. I can't fault this beautiful, poised, articulate woman. May her captors rot in jail. I'm rooting for her and can't understand the jaded, bitter folks who blame HER for this ordeal.

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50 years from now she'll still be doing interviews. Her family has never met a camera it didn't love.

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The woman involved in he kidnap deserves a life sentence. She aided and abetted the rapes

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I never heard of this story before. It's horrific! I think you have to blame the government and society at large for creating people like this. This is what happens when there's such massive disparity in wealth and that only happens because governments let it happen. They're too scared to tax people who earn millions and billions but that is what must happen. Then we wouldn't have people who, for them, committing a crime like this is "worth it" because their life is so miserable. I'm not saying the guy is not culpable but so is the government. That's the goverment led by the biggest hypocrite on the planet. At least the girl has the strength to get over this and she seems to be doing ok despite the ordeal. She's a good example to anyone faced with a problem.

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Can't help wonder who or what the people who red arrow some of the good positive comments are, what is that about??

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there sad bitter idiots who will probaly red arrow me now for telling the truth!!! haha........#nesbits

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a brave ,beautiful girl. like most Mormon girls !

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Ahhhh "promoting my book"........This is old news. Yes, sad but very old. Too bad she doesn't get that monetary gain wont wash away the pain. How many more interviews and books do we have to endure. Anyone ever heard of a journal?

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thankyou thats exactly my point below ¬¬¬

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im glad he safe and well..............but WHY on earth would she want to make "dirty" money of it all by writing books and doing interviews...............it would be like earning money from that sickos actions.

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IM GLAD SHES SAFE and well))))) NOT HE DM I DIDNT WRITE HE!!!!! HES A PEICE OF THILTH

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I watched this interview with my husband and came away with nothing but admiration for this courageous young woman and her family. I wish her nothing but the best all the rest of the days of her/their life/lives. Take care (and turn your alarm system on!)!!!

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